Location: the ktʹivi (Kântivâ) Valley in central Nuristân, the
řâmgʹal and kulʹem Valleys of upper Laghmân (western Nuristân), the
lânḍâi sʹin Valley of eastern Nuristân, some tributary valleys of the
kunʹař (Kunar) River in Afghanistan, and pockets along the Afghanistan border in Chitral
District, Pakistan.

Multi-Ethnic Language Name: kâmkʹata-vari or
kâmkʹata-mumkṣtʹa-vari, terms coined (in the Kâmviri dialect, but with the Kâta-vari form varʹi 'language") to encompass the dialects of the different ethnic groups. Non-indigenous names include "Bashgali" (from Khowar) and "Kati" (Morgenstierne 1926).

Linguistic Position of Kâmkʹata-viri: Kâmkʹata-vari forms with Vâsʹi-vari the Northern
Group of Nuristâni languages (see the Table of Languages). A major
dialect division separates the kom, who speak kâmvʹiri, from the kâtʹa, who
speak kâtʹa-vari. Within kâtʹa-vari there is a division between Western
kâtʹa-vari, spoken in ktʹivi and řâmgʹal, and Eastern kâtʹa-vari, spoken in the
Lanḍai Sin Valley (except in the village of pʹeřuk, where they speak the řâmgʹal dialect).
The dialects of ktʹivi and řâmgʹal are separated by minor differences. The
mumʹo speak an essentially Eastern kâtʹa-vari dialect that incorporates features of
kâmvʹiri. The kṣtʹo, biniʹo, ǰâmčʹo, and ǰâšʹa speak the kâmvʹiri
dialect. Being somewhat isolated, speakers on the Pakistan side of the boundary diverge slightly from
the dialectal norms of their more numerous cousins in Afghanistan.

Fârsi (Persian) from the neighboring Panjshir Valley has displaced kâtʹa-vari in
the villages of kivʹiṣṭ, basʹaidar, âćʹagar, and gulnʹaṣo in řâmgʹal,
and Pashto has displaced kâmvʹiri in the villages of pʹâšaŋar, gâṇʹür,
ćünʹuk, šʹâŋir, šâlʹikuṭ, and mâc̣ʹiamon in kunʹař.

History: After fleeing the Afghân takeover of their ancient lands around the confluence of the
Kâbul and Kunar Rivers, the ancestors of the Kâta, Mumo, Kṣto, and Binio settled a single region: the
Ktivi Valley and the area of its confluence with the Pârun Valley. There they encountered the
autochthonous Jâša people, whom they displaced. Later, apparently, the Kom arrived at kâmʹaṭol
(‘Kom Cliff') in the Kâmgal Valley south of Ktivi by a more circuitous route through Řâmgal.
Their later arrival may account for their being branded as outsiders by their neighbors, who claim a
common origin for themselves.

Some popular accounts of the origins of these peoples assert that they were Arabs who adopted the
Jâša language when they settled in Ktivi. Such accounts were perpetrated by Muslim clerics eager to
incorporate the pre-Islamic Nuristânis into the brotherhood of Islam. Claims of Arabic origins conflict
with traditional accounts of Nuristâni origins and must be recognized as historical revisionism.

Popular accounts also raise the question of the relationship of the language of the Jâša people to the
language of the Kâta and Kom. Such accounts assert that the latter peoples adopted the Jâša language
after they entered Nuristân, and that they used to call their language ǰâšvʹiri ‘Jâša
Language'. If the Kâta and Kom had indeed adopted the Jâša language, we would have to infer that the
Jâša spoke a Nuristâni language; but such an inference does not accord well with popular accounts of the
Jâšas' origin.

By such accounts, the Jâša are considered to be descendants of Alexander the Great's army, with
their name derived from Arabic "ǰaš" ‘army' (properly ǰaiš, from the root
*ǰyš ‘be agitated'). This account is viewed by local intellectuals as apocryphal; why
should alleged Greeks call themselves by a name taken from Arabic centuries later, and from whom
would such Greeks have adopted a Nuristâni language? Furthermore, descent from Alexander's army is
attributed in often conflicting popular accounts to other groups in the region, including the Vâsi, the
people of the bârʹi caste, and the Kalasha of Chitral, and one suspects that such
attribution is merely a romantic way of accounting for otherwise uncertain origins.

Other accounts assert through the similarity of names that the Jâša are related to the
Pashto-speaking Jâji tribe of the province of Paktiâ to the south. Such a view probably arises from the
Kâmviri voiced pronunciation of the palatal spirant š intervocalically, which some
speakers have confused with ǰ. The more conservative Kâtaviri pronunciation shows no
such voicing, and it is improbable that a š and a ǰ would have been
phonetically confused in earlier times.

The š in the name ǰâšʹa does imply a non-Nuristâni source; if the
name were "true" Nuristâni, we would expect from the historical sequence of sound changes a
ć rather than a š. If the Jâša were originally outside the Nuristâni
linguistic community, as the popular accounts seem to indicate, then they could not have supplied a
Nuristâni language to the Kâta and Kom. More likely the Jâša were originally an Indo-Aryan-speaking
group, just like the other peoples of the region before the Nuristânis sought refuge there. After the Kom
and Kâta occupied Jâša territory, they coined the epithet ǰâšvʹiri to refer to their own
language, and the Jâša ultimately adopted the language of the Nuristâni-speaking invaders.

Today the Jâša and all the peoples of Nuristân who emanated from the Ktivi region, including the
Kâta from Ktivi proper, the Kṣto from Kust, the Mumo from Mum, the Binio from Buni, and the Kom from
Kâmaṭol, speak one language, albeit with dialectal divisions. These divisions were furthered as the
people emigrated out from their upper Pech homeland.

At the outset, most likely, the Jâša occupied the highlands above the confluence of the Ničangal and
Lanḍai Sin Valleys at the site of the present Kom town of Kombřom (Kâmdesh), as well as other
unspecified sites up and down the Lanḍai Sin Valley. It is uncertain whether they were exiled there from
the upper Pech region as a result of the Kâtas' arrival or were already dispersed throughout central and
eastern Nuristân.

Probably the next to emigrate were those Kâta who moved to the upper Lanḍai Sin Valley. They
alone maintain present tense verbal stems in -ta-, which is the regular phonetic
development in Kâmkata-vari of the ancient present participal ending -nta-, with loss of
nasal before a voiceless stop. The remaining groups later adopted an Indo-Aryan form of this participial
base, -nda-, with voicing of the postnasal consonant, perhaps from the south via
Âṣkuňu; later this ending became -na- through the normal Kâmkata-vari development of
nd to n.

Subsequently, the peoples of Buni, Kust, and Mum may have migrated to the middle Lanḍai Sin
Valley around its confluence with the Ničangal Valley. The Binio from Buni occupied the highlands on the
Lanḍai Sin side of the watershed, and the Kṣto from Kust occuped the Ničangal side and the lowlands
along the Lanḍai Sin downriver from the confluence. The Mumo from Mum occupied the region above
the confluence. The inhabitants of četrâs, a community at the first bend of the Pârun
River, reportedly migrated to the Bumboret Valley in Chitral. These people may have been related to the
Mumo, as evidenced by the local names for that valley: Kâmkata-vari mumʹaret,
Kalaṣa-mun mumurʹet ("Bumboret" is a Khowar [Chitrali] corruption). Today Četrâs,
Kust, and Buni fall within Vai and Saňu territory.

The remaining Kâta population of Ktivi expanded to the west into the Kulem and Řâmgal
Valleys.

The migrations of these groups were probably driven by the usual processes of social fission in
the region: exile resulting from murder or incest-taboo violations, and pressure to find new pasturelands
resulting from economic competition and population growth.

With the lack of better accounts, any chronology of these migrations is speculative. The order given
above is inferred on a principle of "first gets best," which assumes that the most recently arrived group
appropriates the most desirable land available. A ranking of groups according to the desirability of their
territory would indicate the order of their arrival, providing no group expropriated another's land.

Nuristânis classifiy land by use: they must have flat areas (tul) that they can
cultivate and mountain pastures (so˜) to feed their livestock in the summer. Low-lying
land that supports livestock in the winter (ṣor) is desirable; areas without
ṣor require stockowners to stall feed their animals during winter. A group's territory is
thus more valuable if it has both so˜ and ṣor. Grazing land being
equal, value is proportional to the agricultural output of the territory's tul.

It appears that ṣor in the homelands of Ktivi and Mum was lacking, while the
communities of Kust and Buni commanded marginal ṣor. Each of these groups
apparently occupied ecological niches simliar to those that they left, so that in eastern Nuristân the Kâta
and Mumo lacked ṣor, the Binios' ṣor was marginal, but the Kṣto and
the Jâša had it downriver along the Lanḍai Sin.

Making up for their lack of ṣor, the Kâta occupied the most tul,
dispersed among several villages along the Lanḍai Sin. Kâtagal, as this area is called, supported some
6000 persons in 1970, in a territory greatly expanded since their initial entry into the area. The Mumos'
tul in 1970, around the villages of
mumʹořm, mâṇgʹül,
and sâskʹü˜, supported a population of perhaps 700. Of these two groups, we would
infer that the Kâta beat the Mumo to the best land.

Of the groups that had ṣor, the Jâša occupied the best contiguous
tul in the area, around the present site of Kombřom. This land supported a population
in 1970 of around 2000 persons. The Kṣto had the next best tul, along the Ničangal and
Lanḍai Sin Rivers, encompassing what are today the villages of
kṣtořm,
âgʹuru, ürmʹür, merʹořm, and kâmʹu.
In 1970 the land around these villages supported a combined population of about 900 persons. The
Binio had an allotment of perhaps a third of the tul currently around Kombřom, on the
Lanḍai Sin side of the watershed. Although the Binio have been reduced to only about twenty
households today, their former land could have supported some 500 persons. Of these groups we would
infer that the Jâša got the best land first, followed by the Kṣto, followed by the Binio.

The Kom, who had been harassing their neighbors with raids and demands of tribute, arrived later at
their present site of kʹombřom, after the
aggrieved neighbors summarily drove them out of Kâmaṭol.
The story is told, both among the Kom and among the people of central Nuristân, that a young woman
from Ktivi, married to a man from SaNu, set out from that village to show off her new baby to her father
back home. As she passed the entrance to the Kâmgal Valley, some Kom men accosted her, killed her
baby, and spirited her off to their home in Kâmaṭol, where she was held prisioner. Taking pity on her, a
bârʹi (lower caste artisan-slave) of the Kom helped her escape, and she arrived home in
Ktivi to tell her blind old father what had befallen her. He was so outraged that he induced the people of
Ktivi, Saňu, Jâmac, and Amešdeš to rid their area of the Kom scourge. They attacked Kâmaṭol during a
Kom festival, when the inhabitants were stupefied after days of drinking, and killed everyone there. Only
a few score people, who had been tending their flocks in the outlying pastures, escaped.

The escapees fled east to the Landai Sin Valley, settling at the site of the present village of
sâskʹü˜. A misfortunate omen rendered that site unsuitable, so they set their eyes on
the level ground of Clay Ridge, high above the confluence of the Landai Sin and the Ničangal Rivers. The
Jâša population of that spot, intimidated by the approaching Kom, retreated down the valley to the side
valleys of Pitigal and Uštroṭ, where they remain today, encapsulated in Kom territory. The Binio were
likewise encapsulated within Kom territory in their small village of Binořm. The Kom maintained
generally hostile relations with the Kâta, Kṣto, Mumo, and Saňu.

In the succeeding centuries the Kom fought a series of wars with the Kṣto, leaving them until quite
recently with only the land around their separated settlements of Kṣtořm and Dungal. The ninth war (if
that was indeed the proper count, or merely an auspicious number) was fought in 1929. Allied with the
Kṣto at that time was the entire Kâta tribe, led by General Abdul Vakil Khân of Ktivi, a great hero of the
third Anglo-Afghan war. Despite their overwhelming superiority in manpower, the Kṣto and Kâta forces
were defeated by the Kom, who burnt down Kṣtořm and drove the inhabitants into exile. The ensuing
settlement was long and litiginous. The Kṣto eventually regained most of their land, but they had to pay
a heavy tribute to the Kom, including twenty-five girls as wives for the victors.

As the recent war against the Soviet Union progressed and the initial unity of the Nuristâni forces
gave way to the factionalism of the foreign-backed Afghân parties in Pâkistân, ethnic differences
between the Kom, Kṣto, and Kâta flared up once again. In 1986 fighting between Kom and Kṣto broke
out briefly, with the Kâta again supporting the Kṣto. The demands of the national conflict forced cooler
heads to quell the fighting before much damage was done, but the hostility evidently smoldered.

After the defeat of the Soviet Union and the fall of the communist government in Kâbul, disputes
between the Kom and the Kṣto over water rights sprang up. The Kom alleged periodic Kṣto acts of
sabatoge against the channel that brings much of the Koms' irrigation water from the mountain above
Kṣtořm. Hostilities were narrowly averted several times since 1992, until the last week of June,
1998.

Details are still scarce, but during that week the Koms' patience was pushed past the limit. Two men
from Kombřom were killed in a skirmish with some Kṣto. A Kom tribal force from most of the Kom
communities gathered together and marched on Kṣtořm. They demanded that the killers be handed
over for justice. The Kṣto refused, and hostilities ensued. In the end a dozen people were killed and a
score were injured. In a repeat of the scenario of 1929, but with the Kâta too divided to intervene, the
Kom routed the Kṣto and burned Kṣtořm to the ground.

It remains to be seen whether a settlement reminiscent of that of the 1929 war will allow the Kṣto to
regain their land, or whether they will be consigned to permanent exile. Some Kom, including those from
Ćünuk and Pâšaŋar in the Kunar Valley, abstained from the hostilities, and many Kom with close
kinsmen among the Kṣto feel ambiguous toward the action. These neutrals will most likely play a key
role in any reconciliation.